Sleeping with My Boss Ch. 01

This story is about a young man who responds to a job advertisement and ends up working for an older lady in her law practice.

A note on style: The terms "Solicitor" and "Lawyer" are broadly equivalent in the UK.

The story contains descriptions of anal sex, so if that's not your thing, please pass by.

I hope you enjoy the story and look forward to readers' comments.

Sylviafan

I'd worked for Soloman, Davis and Deacon, a firm of solicitors in the city of London, for six years, since qualifying in fact, and I had enjoyed every moment. Enjoyed the variety of the work and the sharp minds that I worked with and the feeling of satisfaction when the contract was signed or the corporate merger completed.

But then, at the grand old age of thirty, I had started to yearn for something a bit less frenetic. Something away from the noise and clamour of the city. A country practice in some rural idyll where I could still earn decent money but work half the hours and take up golf or fishing perhaps.

So I started looking at the jobs section of the Law Society Gazette and that's how I came upon the advert for a solicitor in E V Benson's practice in the Norfolk town of Market Sutton. She was, apparently, a singleton practitioner who planned to semi-retire in a few years and was looking for an associate partner who could run the practice on her behalf, presumably eventually as a full partner.

It was a peach of a job, just what I was looking for. And a thousand other candidates, I suspected. Nevertheless, I pulled out my CV and dusted it off and polished it up a bit and emailed it to Ms Benson, expecting to hear nothing.

I heard nothing for nearly three weeks and I'd almost forgotten about it when I received an email inviting me to an interview in a conference centre on the outskirts of Norwich. I surmised that this was the first sift based on CVs alone and would involve more candidates than could reasonably be dealt with in a small provincial solicitor's office.

My interview was at ten-thirty on a Wednesday morning and I arrived at the anodyne conference centre, just off the ring-road, at ten precisely, found a cafeteria, got myself a coffee and presented myself to a lady sitting at a desk with a sign that read, "E V Benson Interviews". She smiled and took my name and directed me down a corridor to a little anteroom, where I would be called at the appropriate time.

There was one other person in the anteroom, a big, beefy lad with red hair who looked more like a farmer than a solicitor. I said, 'Hello' and he said, 'Hello' back and I was just going to ask him if he'd come far when the door to the interview room opened suddenly and a young lady marched out, shutting the door behind her with some force. She didn't look at me or the big lad, but as she walked past I heard her mutter, 'Cow!' and then she was out of the anteroom and disappearing down the corridor. I grinned at beefy and he grinned back and then the door opened again and a lady's head looked out and said, 'Mr Spencer?' and beefy got up and went in and the door closed and I was on my own.

I couldn't hear anything and the anteroom was completely characterless, it didn't even have an outside window. So I fiddled with my phone and stared at the ceiling and after about fifteen minutes I was joined by a lady in her thirties or forties dressed smartly in a blue business suit and a white blouse. I said hello but she barely glanced at me. Instead she pulled out her phone and began texting furiously.

Ten minutes later the interview room door opened again and the big lad walked out. As he passed me he grimaced and gave a thumbs down and I suddenly felt nervous. Who or what lay behind the door?

He'd left the door open and now a voice called, 'Mr Steadman?' I got up, feeling suddenly queasy, before reminding myself that I didn't need this job so why worry. I squared my shoulders and walked into the interview room.

It was bare apart from a desk and two chairs. Behind the desk stood an imposing lady in her mid or late fifties, I guessed. She was tall and slender, but I think the word that first occurred to me was severe. Her dark-brown hair was pulled back in a bun which seemed to have stretched her face so that she could only just manage a smile. She was attractive, in an austere way, with a firm chin, well-defined lips, high, prominent cheek bones and a straight nose and dark blue eyes that seemed to pierce into me. Above her nose, between her dark eyebrows, were two pronounced vertical lines, which had the effect of making her look as though she was frowning all the time.

She was elegantly dressed in a white satin blouse above a black pencil skirt; the jacket was on the back of her chair. She held out a hand with long, tapering fingers and I took it and gripped briefly.

'Pleased to meet you, Ms Benson,' I told her.

'Elizabeth will do very nicely, thank you,' she replied. She enunciated crisply and cleanly with no trace of a regional accent. 'Do sit down. Do you mind if I call you Robin?'

'Please do,' I replied, sitting down in the hard plastic chair and clasping my hands in my lap.

The interview lasted twenty-five minutes and mostly involved me answering questions on my CV and specifically on the types of work that I was competent in; Ms Benson didn't tell me anything more about the role and I didn't ask. I tried to couch my answers to accord with what I thought she might be looking for but it was difficult because her expression rarely changed from vaguely disapproving.

Eventually she stood up, signalling that the ordeal was over. 'Thank you for coming, Robin, I'll be in touch.' She didn't offer her hand, which I took as the death knell for any hopes I might have had.

'What timescale are you looking at for an appointment,' I asked, wanting to at least say something on my own initiative.

'Probably late April,' she replied, briefly.

'Thank you,' I added, and I opened the door and went out, glancing at the next candidate who was still texting.

I knew with some certainty that I wasn't going to be working for Elizabeth Benson, but I had all day to get back to London, so, on a whim, I detoured through Market Sutton, where I stopped for lunch. It was a charming market town with quirky narrow streets and lots of independent retailers and there was an air about it of calm and prosperity. Shame, I said to myself as I drove away. I could have been happy here.

A month later, and long after I'd stopped thinking about it, I received a very unexpected email from Ms Benson asking me to attend a second interview in two weeks' time at her office in Market Sutton High Street. I was taken aback. Nothing about the first interview had suggested that she was looking for someone like me. But then she hadn't exactly told me what she was looking for; I'd done most of the talking. But I remembered the rustic appeal of Market Sutton and I emailed back to say that I would be attending.

In some respects I looked forward to the next interview. Despite the atmosphere of the first interrogation, I had nevertheless found myself drawn to Elizabeth Benson. Not in a sexual way, that came later, but I had admired her clear thinking and her air of knowing exactly what she wanted. Her obvious competence.

I arrived in Market Sutton at ten-thirty on the day of the second interview. My slot was at eleven-thirty so I parked behind the High Street and found a little coffee shop where I sat and sipped an americano and rehearsed in my mind what I was going to say, although I was only guessing what she was going to ask; we'd covered all the legal stuff at the first interview, I thought.

At eleven-twenty I left the coffee shop and strolled down the High Street to a redbrick regency terrace, separated from the road by a fenced-off cobbled area. The six houses in the terrace were all four-stories and, at first glance, most of them seemed to have professional premises on their ground floors. By the big black door to the second property from the left was a brass plaque which read "Elizabeth V Benson LLB, Solicitor at Law".

I opened the door and found myself in a surprisingly spacious reception with a desk and some easy chairs and a row of filing cabinets along one wall. Watercolour scenes of rural Norfolk adorned the walls and behind the desk sat the lady who had welcomed me to the conference centre in Norwich.

'Mr Steadman?' she asked.

'Yes.'

'Please take a seat. She picked up a phone and punched a button and, after a pause, said, 'Mr Steadman's here, Elizabeth.' She put the phone down. 'Mrs Benson will be with you in a few minutes.'

So it was Mrs Benson. She was married. I had a fleeting image of a hen-pecked husband and had to suppress a grin.

I sat in one of the easy chairs and looked around. The reception room was high-ceilinged and elegant and had two further doors leading off it. I looked at the paintings and decided they were probably originals, I also sneaked a few glances at the receptionist as she typed on a keyboard, a large monitor on the desk in front of her. She looked exactly as I would have imagined a receptionist in a rural law practice would look: mid-forties, smartly dressed and carefully made up and wearing heavy framed spectacles and pearl earrings.

One of the two doors opened at that moment and Mrs Benson put her head around the door. 'Hello Robin, would you come this way, please.' I stood up and Mrs Benson addressed the receptionist. 'Would you organise some tea and coffee please, Hazel?'

I followed her down a corridor and into a bright and airy office at the far end, looking out over a small walled garden. She invited me to sit in a comfortable leather chair and she sat behind her desk and looked at me and I felt as though my appearance was being assessed in some way and I was glad that I'd decided upon a sober grey suit and white shirt.

'Thank you for coming all this way,' she began. 'I appreciate that you're probably using annual holiday to come here so I wanted to begin by telling you a little about the process I'm going through and why it's a bit more complicated and long-winded than normal.

'My father started this practice back in 1971,' she began. 'He was E V Benson, too, so the company named remained the same when he retired and I took over in 2000. Now I'm looking forward to my own retirement, probably within five years. Unfortunately I don't have any children to hand it on to but I wish to remain in control of the company, of my father's legacy, for as long as possible. So I am looking for somebody to run the business on a day-to-day basis after I've retired. As you may imagine,' she went on,' I want to make sure that I select the right person.'

'Yes,' I agreed, anxious to say something. 'I see that. It must be like entrusting somebody with your child.' As soon as the words were out I realised what I'd said; Mrs Benson had just told me she had no children.

'Quite.' She gave me a thin-lipped smile. 'So the first interview concentrated on your professional CV. This interview is my chance to find out what sort of a person you are, what you do in your spare time, your hobbies and interests and so on. After that, a small subset of candidates will be invited to join me here for a day and to meet clients both here and at their homes or premises.'

'Will you be asking them for feedback?' I asked.

'Very much so,' Mrs Benson confirmed. 'It's really important that I appoint somebody who can get along with my most important clients. So it's a bit of an extended process, but I hope you can see why I'm doing it.

'Now, Robin,' she clasped her hands together on the desk, 'tell me about yourself.'

'I'd guessed that this would be the basis of the second interview and I had rehearsed my responses carefully, tailoring them to be what I imagined she wanted to hear, whilst sticking strictly to the truth. I talked for the best part of an hour, with Mrs Benson occasionally interrupting to ask for clarification or elaboration. The receptionist came in with refreshments and poured me a cup of tea which sat untouched by my side as I talked. Eventually I ground to a halt.

'Now you know it all,' I smiled and, to my surprise, Mrs Benson smiled back - her expression had barely changed while I had been speaking, although she had kept those piercing blue eyes fixed on me.

'Thank you Robin, that was... most enlightening. Can I get you some more tea? That cup must be stone cold.'

She went out and I slumped in my seat, exhausted and sweating, as though I'd just run a mile. Then she was back, putting a steaming mug next to my chair. She sat down again.

'Have you got anything you'd like to ask me?'

Well there was the little matter of remuneration package and working hours and so on, but I didn't want to appear grasping. Also I wanted to know how many candidates were left in the process and how many would go through to the final stage, but I didn't want to appear needy. 'What sort of work do you get around here?' I asked, knowing that this would be dear to her heart.

'Well,' she began, 'it's a rural practice so there are a lot of boundary disputes and issues of damage caused by livestock.' She talked for about ten minutes, and while she talked I looked at her in her cream blouse and pearl necklace, with those high cheekbones and perfect lips and for the first time I began to see her as an object of sexual interest, a mature and elegant lady. Slender and shapely, a hint of breasts under the silky material of her blouse, reserved and well-spoken, competent and decisive. What, I wondered, was she like when all the barriers were down? Would she writhe naked underneath me while I held her down and fucked her?

The interview ended a few minutes later and Mrs Benson showed me to the front door and shook my hand.

'Safe journey back to London, Robin.'

So another interview had passed and again I had no idea if I had done well or badly; she had given nothing away. I had just done my best. I grinned as I drove down the M11 at the little fantasy that had flitted through my mind as Mrs Benson had talked about her practice. Silly sod, I said to myself. She's probably older than your mother. And married.

But when, a fortnight later, she called me one evening as I was watching television, I couldn't deny that a little shiver of excitement went through me.

'It's Elizabeth, Elizabeth Benson.'

'Oh, hello, Elizabeth.' My stomach turned over. Was it good or bad news?

'I'd like to invite you back for a final interview. Are you available on March the 30th?'

As it happened, I'd booked a day off work that day to go to the dentist. But that could wait.

'Yes,' I said, decisively.

'Good,' she replied. 'Can you be at my office for nine-thirty?'

'Yes,' I said again.

'Very well, I'll see you then.'

'Oh, Elizabeth,' I stuttered, before she hung up, it was the first time I'd used her first name, I think. 'Can I ask how many candidates are left in the process?'

There was a brief silence. 'Four,' she said, eventually.

That final day of the interview process was the hardest. It was almost a whole day of client visits and meetings in her office or at their premises and it was clear that the clients had been briefed beforehand. On a number of occasions Elizabeth asked my opinion which really put me on the spot as I had no prior knowledge of the cases we were discussing. I made a point of asking at least one, what I thought was sensible, question of each of the clients and they were frank and open in their replies. In fact I warmed to the local people she was dealing with; they were quiet, no-nonsense folk, who seemed to have few pretensions. People I felt I could deal with, build a rapport with.

After the last meeting, which was in Elizabeth's office, she made us some coffee and we sat down across her desk. I was exhausted and I marvelled at her stamina; she must be getting on for thirty years older than me, but although there had been six or seven meetings, and some of them had been quite full-on, she looked as fresh as she had when I arrived that morning. Furthermore she had conducted herself with crisp efficiency and competence for the whole seven hours and I felt my admiration for her grow.

'Well, Robin,' she began, 'did you find that interesting? I imagine it was a world away from what you're used to with a city practice.' She was dressed today in another business suit, with a short jacket and pencil skirt. This one was a deep purple. As we had been out of the office so much, I had taken the opportunity to sneak a few looks at her lower legs and had not been disappointed. Her calves below the shirt had been slim and shapely and clad in black nylon and she had worn three-inch heels, making her the same height as me.

'It's very different,' I agreed. 'For one thing I deal with other lawyers, mostly. There's a refreshing honesty about your clients.'

Elizabeth smiled, showing very white, even teeth. 'Some of the farmers are very naïve. They can deliver a calf at midnight in a barn but they're lost when it comes to the law. They need someone to stand up for them.'

'Yes,' I said, with feeling, 'I see that.'

'Anything you'd like to ask me?' she asked, giving me that keen stare again.

'What is the remuneration package?' I asked, staring back.

'Yes, good point.' She took a sheet of paper from the top drawer of her desk and handed it to me. It outlined working hours, salary, holidays and other benefits including pension contributions. It was less than I was getting in the city, but more than I had anticipated. I put the sheet down as if it wasn't important.

'When will you make a decision?' It suddenly seemed very important to know and I realised that I really wanted this job. Really liked the town and the people and... and, well, Elizabeth too. She might be a cold fish but she knew her job and I reckoned she would be a supportive and fair boss.

'This weekend. I'll call everybody on Sunday. I think that's only fair after the ordeal I've put you all through.'

She showed me to the door again. The reception was empty, Hazel's desk bare apart from the keyboard and monitor. I assumed she left at five.

Again we shook hands and she wished me a safe journey and as I walked over the cobbles I glanced back and she was standing in the doorway, watching me.

The phone call came on Sunday evening. I'd been on tenterhooks the whole day. My mum had phoned for a chat but I'd put her off, scared that Elizabeth would call and the line would be engaged.

I picked up my phone and saw that it was a private number.

'Hello?'

'Robin? It's Elizabeth.' My guts turned over and I sank into a chair.

'Hello, Elizabeth,' I croaked. 'How are you?' I added, inconsequentially.

'I'm fine, thank you.' There was a pause, as if for dramatic effect. 'I've decided to offer you the job, Robin. When can you give me an answer?'

'Now,' I said, firmly. 'I accept.'

'Are you sure you don't want to think about it overnight?'

'I've thought about it,' I replied. 'When do you want me to start? I have to give six weeks' notice,' I added.

'That's great!' Her voice held some warmth for the first time. 'I'll get Hazel to draw up the contract tomorrow morning and send it over.'

I started at E V Benson's on the 22nd of May, a glorious spring day with the cherry trees lining the High Street in full blossom. I had finished at Soloman, Davis and Deacon a couple of weeks before, taking my outstanding holiday during my notice period to give me a chance to find somewhere to live in or near to Market Sutton. I'd ended up renting a place on the outskirts of the town, a two-bed maisonette in a courtyard stable block conversion. It had a small garden, parking for two cars and plenty of quirky bits like beams and rough stone interior walls.